adobe / adobe/spectrum-web-components
[Bug]: sp-menu - when sp-menu-items are rendered in a lit elements shadow dom, the items are not accessible with the keyboard
- Dominant language
- TypeScript
- Stars
- 1.5k
- Forks
- 262
- Avg merge
- 3d 10h
- Merged PRs (30d)
- 68
Description
### Code of conduct
- [x] I agree to follow this project's code of conduct.
### Impacted component(s)
sp-menu, sp-menu-item
### Library version
1.9.0
### Expected behavior
When using lit, if sp-menu-item elements are rendered in a shadow dom they should remain accessible without requiring the component to back out of the shadow dom which is custom to lit elements
### Actual behavior
Since sp-menu-item are in the shadow dom they are not accessible from sp-menu
Items were invisible to sp-menu. StudioMenuLevelElement rendered its sp-menu-items into a shadow root. sp-menu discovers its items by descending one level into non-item children via querySelectorAll(':scope > *') — light DOM only. Items behind the wrapper's shadow root were never found, so sp-menu had zero registered items → no roving tabindex, no focus-on-open, no arrow nav. (The items still rendered — slot projection is passive — they just weren't registered, which is what keyboard nav walks.)
### Screenshots
_No response_
### What browsers are you seeing the problem in?
Chrome
### How can we reproduce this issue?
### Sample code or abstract reproduction which illustrates the problem
Have the DOM tree look like the following. sp-menu when using the keyboard can not find the sp-menu-items properly
sp-menu
custom-lit-element
#shadow-root
sp-menu-item
sp-menu-item
### Severity
SEV 4
### Logs taken while reproducing problem
_No response_
### Would you like to track this issue in Jira?
- [ ] Yes, please tell me the ticket number!
Contributor guide
Research direction
Start with the sp-menu item-discovery entry point and the sp-menu-item registration behavior described in the issue, using the nested custom-lit-element shadow-root DOM as the reproduction. Confirm that items inside the shadow root are discovered and registered, then verify that roving tabindex, focus on open, and arrow-key navigation work for the rendered items.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Assessment
- Tech stack
- typescript
- Domain
- accessibility, frontend
- Issue type
- Bug
- Difficulty
- 3/5
- Estimated time
- 1-2 days
- Activity status
- Quiet
- Clarity
- Mostly clear
- Newbie friendliness
- 55/100